


I Will Walk

by Emony



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Covert Affairs
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emony/pseuds/Emony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie gets out of the Corvette, this new/old car, and walks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Walk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avamclean](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=avamclean).



> Spoilers for the end of Season 2 of Covert Affairs.
> 
> This was written whilst listening to Florence and the Machine's Shake It Out on repeat.

Title: I Will Walk  
Author: Emony  
Summary: Annie gets out of the Corvette, this new/old car, and walks.  
Prompt/Prompter: avamclean - _Covert Affairs/BtVS, Annie Walker + Buffy Summers, Wrong shoes, right time._  
Rating: Teen  
Warnings: Discussions of the themes of the final episode of season 2 of Covert Affairs.  
Disclaimer: I don't own BtVS or Covert Affairs, that's Joss and USA Network.

***

Annie gets out of the Corvette, this new/old car, and walks.

 _I can literally hear you smiling_ , he’d said. It’s the first time in so long that he’s gotten it so, so very wrong.

She’d thought that driving in a car like that, with the wind in her hair would be exhilarating.

He’d walked away.

She’d gunned it down back roads through farming country like she was driving an impala and chasing demons. Let the sunlight hit her face. She smiled.

It faded.

She walks.

The heels of her boots sink slightly in the field she walks across; leaving the car behind her at the road side.

She stands in the middle of the field and watches the sun set arms out wide taking in the last rays of light as though they give her power like a superhero.

He was supposed be there for her. He was supposed to be there when she got to this point. When she finally did the thing her job expected of her, but her soul did not. He was supposed to be her buffer between life and not.

He wasn’t supposed to walk away. She can’t take it. She knows what happens to girls like her when they don’t have that support.

She knows what happens to girls like her who take human life.

She stands in the middle of the field, arms open to the night and waits.

“Jeez, Annie, did you have to pick the middle of a field?” a familiar voice says from somewhere behind her, “I’m not wearing the right shoes for this.”

“What?” she asks, almost stumbling as two arms surround her in a hug. This is not what she expected, for it to be Buffy, for it to go like this.

“These Louboutin’s you persuaded me to get in New York?” Buffy says tightening her arms, “so not ready for wandering about in a muddy field.”

Annie doesn’t know what to say. She walks, takes a step away from the other slayer, shrugging the arms away, and then takes another step, and another.

She hears the sigh behind her, would have heard it even without her hearing. She walks.

“I know this isn’t what you expected Annie, it never is,” Buffy says and walks in step behind her, “you knew this would happen one day.”

“It’s not supposed to,” is all Annie can say.

“No, but since when have we stuck to supposed to?” Buffy says and tugs her around to face her; to face the alpha slayer.

“I-,” she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to say, to do.

“You said you were ready, Annie, ready to be strong,” the Slayer says, reaching to hold her hand.

“I did,” Annie says, because she did, because she was.

“This is it, Annie, this is the part where you’re strong,” Buffy smiles and something in Annie relaxes, “this is the part where you pick up everything, shake it off and restart.”

“Restart?” she asks.

“This is the life you chose Annie, you’d be here even if you weren’t a slayer, this is you,” Buffy smiles, “and I know it’s hard, God knows it took me a long time to get over-,” she shakes the word off her shoulders, “but you’re trained for this Annie, and you have people at work and at home who can help you get through this.”

“But he-” she doesn’t know how to say he left, that she realised what he was, who he was to her and he left.

“I know,” Buffy says, “I know.”

They stand for a moment, facing each other holding hands, until Buffy sits and tugs Annie around and down with her. They sit on the grass and face east.

“Willow taught me this,” Buffy says putting her hands down in the grass, “clear your mind and feel the blades of grass under your hands.”

Annie puts her hands down in the cold grass but doesn’t know how stop her mind repeating, _I can literally hear you smiling, I can literally hear you smiling, I can literally hear you smiling, I can literally hea-_

Buffy’s left hand is on her right hand, “stop.”

“Feel the grass, count the blades if you have to,” Buffy says, moving her hand away again, “watch the stars and feel the grass.”

All she can hear is Buffy’s and her own breathing, nothing around them makes a noise as the two predators sit in the field. It takes a while, she doesn’t know how long, but eventually the mantra ( _I can literally hear you smiling_ ) slows, and then stops. She counts the blades of grass, feels them under her hands. At first it’s just the cold she feels, the beginnings of a dew forming, but eventually she feels it all, this living thing.

She only realises she’s closed her eyes when she opens them, “She can take it.”

They watch the sunrise on a new day.

End


End file.
